'We are the real patriots'
New Israel Fund's Israel director, Rachel Liel negates the accusations leveled against the group by the right, and insists the group helps people across the political spectrum.
Dozens of people, the likes of whom don't usually hang out in such a location, pour into a huge tent at the Tel Aviv Port. They bypass the urban food market with its meticulous array of produce, and the large stores where jeans sell for prices befitting a monthly salary; they weave their way cautiously among the shiny cars and big jeeps, looking for the entrance to Pavilion 11.
They go inside – residents of the periphery, members of the Ethiopian community, social activists, doctors who treat individuals without rights, battered women, Bedouin citizens, the disabled, Israeli Arabs and various other representatives of the weaker sectors of Israeli society. They're all here to meet the people from the New Israel Fund, probably the most maligned organization in the country.
Once a year, the NIF board members who manage the $32 million fund – the sum of the annual donations that go towards various causes and organizations – come to Israel; and the visit also serves as a good opportunity for them to see from up close how their money is being spent.
The donors, all of them North American Jews who've been supporting and funding the NIF's activities for the past 35 years, manage the fund in tandem with its Israeli branch; and Rachel Liel, NIF Israel director for the past five years, mingles with the guests from overseas, makes introductions and exchanges small talk.
The mood is relaxed and pleasant; but as has been the case at all NIF events in recent years, a smear-campaign cloud hangs in the air. For example, the Likud was quick to accuse the NIF of funding the V15 organization's campaign to topple Benjamin Netanyahu. Okay, so attorney David Shimron was forced to apologize publicly and retract the false accusations, but the link was once again etched in the minds of hundreds of thousands of Israelis.
'No one listened'
NIF's troubles began some five years ago. NIF board members had convened for a meeting, when alarming reports suddenly started pouring in from Israel. An aggressive campaign launched by the Im Tirtzu movement was accusing the fund and its president, Naomi Chazan, of supporting organizations that provided data to the Goldstone Commission, a United Nations inquiry into alleged human rights abuses during the IDF's 2008 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
"We all sat there stunned, and all we could think about was our donors, and how they would react when they hear what we'd been accused of," Liel recalls.
"Hundreds of thousands in Israel receive assistance from them that they wouldn't get from anywhere else, not even from the state, and people in Israel are calling them 'traitors.' We were afraid they'd be deterred from continuing to donate."
The accusations were subsequently refuted by NIF officials; but by then, the name of the new enemy was widely known, and the right wing has jumped at almost every opportunity since to demonize the NIF, portraying it as an organization that seeks to take control of Israel by means of foreign money.
"The data they were talking about came from publications and Internet sites and wasn't actively submitted to the Goldstone Commission," Liel says.
"But no one listened; the damage had been done and the false reports had already done their job. We were so naïve; we never concerned ourselves with our image and we never thought there'd be a need at all to defend such important voluntary activity. We are the body that allows hundreds of citizen organizations to implement values that will shape Israel as a culturally diverse society. Do we really need a spokesperson to stand up for us?"
Despite the smear campaign, the donations continued to come in, and they still do – and the allocation of funds to the various organizations, including those that come under heavy flak from the right, goes on too.
"We're accused of being political, and that's a claim that infuriates me anew every time," Liel says. "We have activists, employees and volunteers from across the political spectrum in Israel, and it's never been a relevant factor in our activities. We help hundreds of thousands of children, youth, the elderly, new immigrants and just about everyone.
"As we see things, human rights mean providing welfare, and it doesn't matter if you're an Ethiopian who's been discriminated against at the entrance to a club, Tmura – the Israeli Anti-Discrimination Legal Center - will give you legal advice, and we will fund it without inquiring into your political opinions; or if it's discrimination against Mizrahi girls in the ultra-Orthodox sector, where we've intervened and provided assistance without checking which parties they voted for in the elections."
What nevertheless has changed since that storm two years ago? Was there a moment of reflection; did you arrive at any new insights?
"We never once thought of suspending our support for Arab organizations; that was never an option. Yes, we responded to the criticism that falsely claimed that we aren't transparent. All our grants were public knowledge before then too, and appeared in reports to the donors, thus we have never hidden anything. We quickly posted all the information onto our website and it has all been laid out there ever since, down to the very last cent we've received."
Nevertheless, the fund has clarified its guidelines with respect to the organizations that receive donations.
"A decision was made not fund foreign organizations that plan to file criminal charges against our soldiers and leaders, and we don't fund organizations that call for boycotts against Israel and refusal to serve in the Israel Defense Forces," Liel says.
And how many organizations were erased from the list as a result?
"Just two that failed to meet the criteria, out of hundreds… The injustice the fund has suffered is indescribable, because a group of people has come along and smeared work carried out over many years for the benefit of almost every single person in Israel."
Preserving its independence
Rachel Liel had been in South Africa with her husband, Alon, Israel's ambassador there at the time, for two years when the country held its first democratic elections in 1994. Nelson Mandela was about to make history and become South Africa's first black president after decades of apartheid rule.
"The city was full of long lines of voters who were at a polling station for the first time in their lives," she recalls.
"Dozens of elderly people waited hours in line to exercise their democratic right; they came from afar to vote – some by means of their thumbprint; and for the first time in my life, I understood the power a citizen has to change the reality of his life."
Liel, who had served until then as a deputy director at the Social Affairs Ministry, decided that it was high time she, too, made a change.
"When we returned to Israel, I felt I wanted to go over to 'the side of the citizen,' to leave the government ministry and to try to help people in areas in which the state doesn't help."
So why is there so much suspicion surrounding your objectives?
"They tried to pass laws in the Knesset against our activities. Faina Kirschenbaum (Yisrael Beytenu) tried to enact a law that imposes a tax on any contribution that comes from abroad, and there was another version of a bill that sought to brand as a foreign agent any organization that receives money from foreign states.
"If these bills had passed, all the dozens of organizations that we fund would have closed down. The European Union, which donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations such as the Israel Women's Network and the environmental groups in Israel, would have ceased its activities here too… and it would have put us on a par with countries such as Iran, Russia and China.
"Everyone wants Israel to be one of the OECD countries but they don't understand that such legislation would have seen us kicked out of the family of civilized nations. We are the real patriots, who are concerned about the future of the State of Israel and are also doing something about it."
